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What I learned from the Man Panel!

I’ve got a super juicy blog for you today all about what I learned from the Man Panel!

This past Tuesday, I spoke in NYC at an event called WSDM. My friend Kim Bates is the founder along with some very powerful women. She had the brilliant idea to have a Man Panel so the women in the room could ask all kinds of questions and get answers straight from the horse’s mouth. It was brilliant. My husband, Hemal, was one of the guests, along with 5 other men.

This was my first time to a Man Panel of this sort, and I was surprised by how much I loved it! I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to think because ultimately, I stand for women expressing who they are authentically without worrying about what men will think. And that’s because expressing themselves is what gives them access to their truth. I’ve seen it over and over again — when a woman is revealing what she needs and desires, the truth comes forth and allows her to be more of who she is. And that is such a turn on for men.

So I came in with some preconceived ideas that the men would say things that just make women more self-conscious about how they interact with men. But with this group of men, this experience was so different. First, there were equal parts married and single men. And what was so brilliant was that the women could get a sense of what the single men are thinking when meeting women, and the married men could reveal what it took for them to make the highest form of commitment.

What hit me like a ton of bricks while listening to these men is that they agreed with so much of what I spoke about. And on that stage, they simply revealed their humanness. They each desire a women that understands them as much as we as women desire that a man understand us.

Here’s a recap of what I learned from the men that night:

A women who is confident is super sexy

Men desire a partnership that allows them to be heard and understood

Men lose themselves in relationships just as much as women do

Men want women to reveal their true intentions, and not play games

Women think that they know how to support their men but are trying too hard, ask it can be simple

Basically men are HUMAN. And way too many women are trying too hard to understand them as if they are another species. I’m not saying that men and woman are the same. I’m simply saying that when you boil it all down, men desire the same things we do: love, appreciation, and understanding.

Your Lovework this week is to ask yourself:

How do you currently see men? What do you think about men and how they operate in the world? Start to simply list them out. Don’t think too much about it.

Then look at the list, cross everything out, and write, “They are just like ME – HUMAN — and they serve as an ASSET to my life.”

Please share what you think men are like below. I want to hear what you currently perceive them to be.